Saunterings eBook

Sorrento, ancient and romantic city, lies at the southwest
end of this plain, built along the sheer sea precipice,
and running back to the hills,—­a city of
such narrow streets, high walls, and luxuriant groves
that it can be seen only from the heights adjacent.
The ancient boundary of the city proper was the famous
ravine on the east side, a similar ravine on the south,
which met it at right angles, and was supplemented
by a high Roman wall, and the same wall continued
on the west to the sea. The growing town has pushed
away the wall on the west side; but that on the south
yet stands as good as when the Romans made it.
There is a little attempt at a mall, with double rows
of trees, under that wall, where lovers walk, and
ragged, handsome urchins play the exciting game of
fives, or sit in the dirt, gambling with cards for
the Sorrento currency. I do not know what sin
it may be to gamble for a bit of printed paper which
has the value of one sou.

The great ravine, three quarters of a mile long, the
ancient boundary which now cuts the town in two, is
bridged where the main street, the Corso, crosses,
the bridge resting on old Roman substructions, as
everything else about here does. This ravine,
always invested with mystery, is the theme of no end
of poetry and legend. Demons inhabit it.
Here and there, in its perpendicular sides, steps have
been cut for descent. Vines and lichens grow
on the walls: in one place, at the bottom, an
orange grove has taken root. There is even a mill
down there, where there is breadth enough for a building;
and altogether, the ravine is not so delivered over
to the power of darkness as it used to be. It
is still damp and slimy, it is true; but from above,
it is always beautiful, with its luxuriant growth of
vines, and at twilight mysterious. I like as well,
however, to look into its entrance from the little
marina, where the old fishwives are weaving nets.

These little settlements under the cliff, called marinas,
are worlds in themselves, picturesque at a distance,
but squalid seen close at hand. They are not
very different from the little fishing-stations on
the Isle of Wight; but they are more sheltered, and
their inhabitants sing at their work, wear bright
colors, and bask in the sun a good deal, feeling no
sense of responsibility for the world they did not
create. To weave nets, to fish in the bay, to
sell their fish at the wharves, to eat unexciting
vegetables and fish, to drink moderately, to go to
the chapel of St. Antonino on Sunday, not to work
on fast and feast days, nor more than compelled to
any day, this is life at the marinas. Their world
is what they can see, and Naples is distant and almost
foreign. Generation after generation is content
with the same simple life. They have no more idea
of the bad way the world is in than bees in their
cells.

THE VILLA NARDI

The Villa Nardi hangs over the sea. It is built
on a rock, and I know not what Roman and Greek foundations,
and the remains of yet earlier peoples, traders, and
traffickers, whose galleys used to rock there at the
base of the cliff, where the gentle waves beat even
in this winter-time with a summer swing and sound
of peace.